Bayard Rustin - Page Text Content

1: "To be afraid is to behave as if the truth is not true." -Bayard Rustin

3: Bayard Rustin was born on March 17, 1912, in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He was raised by his maternal grandparents, Janifer and Julia Rustin. As a child, Bayard attended African Methodist Episcopal Church with his grandparents. Bayard Rustin grew up with having one grandparent, Julia, as a Quaker, and his other grandparent, Janifer, as a methodist. | Early Life

4: Schooling | Bayard Rustin went to Cheyney and Wilberforce University on musical scholarships. After finishing Cheyney University, he joined the band, "Josh White and the Carolinians". The band played at the Café Society nightclub in Greenwich Village, where he widened his social and intellectual.

7: Influences | With his grandparents very involved with the church, leaders of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancements of Colored People) were common guests at the Rustin house, which influenced him at a very young age. Other people Rustin was influenced by were W. E. B. Du Bois, James Weldon Johnson, A. J. Muste, A. Philip Randolph, and Mahatma Gandhi

8: Jim Crow Laws | With the early influences of the NAACP, in his youth, Rustin's first campaign was against the racially discriminatory Jim Crow Laws; which where the state and local laws that mandated all public facilities must be segregated to African Americans. After Rustin's protest, the Jim Crow Laws were still active.

11: Reasons | Rustin took a stand in the Civil Rights Movement because he wanted to stop racial segregation on interstate busing and he also wanted to help the economic problems of working-class and unemployed African Americans. Rustin worked to change these things by using non-violent resistance, with things such as the Freedom Ride and the March on Washington.

12: Freedom Ride | With Bayard's determination to stop racial segregation on interstate buses, he led the first Freedom Ride. The freedom ride was when civil rights activists rode interstate buses into the segregated southern United States in 1961. The first Freedom Ride left Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1961, and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on May 17.

15: March on Washington | In 1963, Rustin became the chief organizer for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The March on Washington was one of the largest political rallies for human rights in United States history and called for civil and economic rights for African American. The march included Martin Luther King Jr.'s well known, "I have a Dream Speech." The march had between 200,000 and 300,000 members, 75%-80% were said to be black.

16: Death | Bayard died on August 24, 1987 at the age of 75 in Manhattan, New York. He died because of a perforated appendix. After he died, an obituary in the New York Times reported, "Looking back at his career, Mr. Rustin, a Quaker, once wrote: 'The principal factors which influenced my life are 1) nonviolent tactics; 2) constitutional means; 3) democratic procedures; 4) respect for human personality; 5) a belief that all people are one.